Edward Albee | Criticism

All Over confronts, as the title suggests, the endemic trait of all living organisms. Death, the great leveler to a poet like William Cullen Bryant, is, for Albee, man's final confrontation with life. In the play, death is tantamount to a metaphysical conceit, with the death of the body being but one thematic strain. The famous man, whose dying is both a public event for the press and the crowd awaiting word of his demise, and a private ritual for the circle of intimates assembled for the vigil, is the instrument through which Albee explores some issues attendant to dying and death. The age at which a person becomes aware of death is an idea examined that is important to the development of psychological maturity. Knowing her husband as a thorough man with almost as much knowledge about law as Best Friend, Wife forces the lawyer into a...